


innocence as the first casualty

by anjalikaastras



Category: Fate/Grand Order
Genre: Fluff and Humor, Other, actually this is just me gross sobbing @ the mahabharata, ch 2: drona confirmed, ch 3: kama interlude, tags to be added as fic goes along
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2020-05-28 07:36:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19389490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anjalikaastras/pseuds/anjalikaastras
Summary: There may have been happier days. And there may have been worse days. But one thing remains: Kurukshetra happened, and it is up to the Servants who live second lives to see if the unforgivable grasp of karma or the grinding wheel of revenge can be softened, if just for a moment.Small snippets focusing on relations between the Hindu servants, both in Chaldea and in Lostbelt 4 (potentially in other situations as well). More characters/tags to be added.





	1. 1. to an old friend: the things we could not say

There are things that must be said, when their paths cross not as the Lostbelt King of India and his general but rather as a simple Archer who is son of the deva-king, and as a man ravaged by his violation of chivalry given a new lease on life, considered worthy now of the Sudarshana that slices the air.

“Drona.”

When they meet one late night in the cafeteria, Ashwatthama with a glass of…something Arjuna can’t quite see in his hands and Arjuna holding on to a cup of tea, it is not surprising. Destiny has a way of tying people together, no matter how fervently they try to avoid each other.

It falls to Arjuna to speak first — Ashwatthama stews in hatred that chokes him each time he sees the Pandava’s visage. In him he sees the boy whom his father loved dearer than Ashwatthama himself. In him he sees the boy who paid the gurudakshina that Karna or Duryodhana could not. In him he sees someone who would have been loved more deeply than Ashwatthama had he been born to Drona —

— and in him, he sees also the man who abetted the lie that killed his father.

“I am sorry. Dhrishtadyumna and Yudhisthira...they were cruel to him.” Not much else needs to be said, and Ashwatthama can only swallow around the lump in his throat.

He had begged the Throne to mayhaps find his father, and found only his father’s favourite.

But this too, must be karma. And it is only right to return the words, as much as they seem to stick in his throat and cry _don’t you remember your father and Duryodhana, you fool ?_

“...I don’t apologise for Dhrishtadyumna’s death. Damn bastard deserved what he got — swarga ain’t for men like him.” is what he says at last, and Arjuna inclines his head in understanding. Bhima would not do so for his killing of Duryodhana. Nor would Arjuna himself apologise for Karna’s killing. That is simply the way war goes, and each of them has accumulated their own _paapa_.

“But…The rest of the men in that camp. I swear — I swear I reserved the death of sacrifices for Drupada’s son alone. Yer children didn’t suffer. Srutakarma—”

“Do not use his name so freely.” Suddenly Arjuna is gritted teeth and sharpness and stinging pain, and Ashwatthama thinks he sees what Jayadratha probably witnessed on the fourteenth day — the Gandiva’s wielder, who walks alongside death and destruction. He sees Indra’s prowess crystallised into a man who gained the favour of the Trimurti as well, who obtained the eternal love of Vasudev Krishna.

But yet another small part of him sees a father who has lost his sons to war. He wants to bite back, _my father and my friends were lost to it as well_ — but if he had sided not with friends but with adharma, could the outcome have been averted ? If he had told his father to leave the war, not to fight by virtue of his caste ?

— Too many ifs and maybes, but not enough to ignore that ultimately, the two of them have chosen their own paths, and that their families and friends have died around them for it.

Arjuna pauses as his outburst concludes, the wildness so similar to the storm being reined in once more, and then he exhales, measured, the stream of air taking some of the rage felt for it. Ashwatthama has paid for it, he reminds himself. It would be petty and wrong for a hero and an upholder of dharma to hold grudges.

And yet.

“I do not know if I can forgive you for those deaths.”

“The feelin’s mutual.” Some tension in the air gives, though it remains so thick that Asi might have struggled to slice it. Some things cannot be forgiven — not even in a second life.

“But…we are here as Servants of our Master, Fujimaru.” Arjuna leans against the wall and brings the cup of tea to his lips. “As such, those grudges…I will put them aside for the moment.”

  
  
_A crescent arrow boring into white flesh, a bowstring snapping in one’s hands, a chariot wheel that ended lives._

“…Whatever.” Ashwatthama brusquely props the chakra up on his back with one hand, the action allowing Arjuna to glimpse the liquid in his cup. White, frothy —

It gets a chuckle out of the awarded hero.

“Your favourite drink is still milk ?”

“‘Course it is. Dad went through a lot of crap from that bastard Drupada to get it for me. Would’ve been dumb to just decide I didn’t like it.”

“Best you drink up, then.” A smile twitches the corners of Arjuna’s lips, and Ashwatthama tenses. That smile is something like a — no —

“After all, we can’t have you getting enraged from a calcium deficiency.”

“Why you little—!!”

The drinks are forgotten, hastily put down (Arjuna) or slammed (Ashwatthama) on a nearby table as one raises the wheel above his head to attack the other, yelling. Their laughter, one from a hero raised to be proper, the other from a man cursed by the gods themselves, is almost alien in this environment. War had sapped from them much of the humour in their human lives — as Servants, such a mundane event was something they both saw beauty in.

And perhaps, even though neither will admit it…

This mock-anger, this playing, as if both were children — to them, something so ordinary has become an unrepeatable memory of quieter, happier days in that ashram in Hastinapura.


	2. 2 — what is past shall in kinder light appear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Saber’s entry into Chaldea marks Ashwatthama’s need to confront the past.

“Servant, Saber. True Name...”

The man whom the ritual’s summoned from the Throne is well into old age and stern-faced, yet his eyes cage youthful vigour. Scrutinising Ritsuka with the gaze of a particularly strict teacher, he seems to finally deem the magus before him acceptable to pledge his service to.

“...You may call me Drona. May this old Brahmin’s sword offer some help.”

Bharadvaj’s son and Brhaspati’s (or some say Brahma’s) avatar is a name that the heroes of the Mahabharata hold with immense respect, and thus it’s no surprise that most of them rush to greet him, to touch his feet and ask for blessing.

Arjuna’s Archer self regards him with a stiff, too-formal respect, neither forgiving nor forgetting the incident with the chakravyuha. Nevertheless, an observer might see the corners of his mouth quirk up involuntarily when Drona congratulates him on his incredible feats and lauds praise upon the youth for all he’s done.

(He can let himself have this moment of joy, at least.)

In contrast, his Alter makes little attempt to disguise the longing for one of the most impactful father figures in his life. His dash forwards is one filled with joy at seeing the teacher, and soon enough Drona’s callused hand strokes the Alter’s head as if this other Arjuna is his own son. Karna detects a strange sense that teeters on desperation when Alter reaches for and grabs his hand, like a lost child rediscovering their parents.

He can understand. When alive, he had lived each day knowing deep in his heart that he was not the birth son of Radha — and though his mother has lavished love upon him, there was a miniscule disconnect, a crack between them that such care could not fill. To have finally learnt the truth of his heritage as Surya’s son had vanished the gap from his mind.

Speaking of sons, though —

When word reaches Ashwatthama’s ears, his reaction is every bit the opposite of what Arjuna expects.

“Did ya tell him I was here ?” His yellow eyes are wild, panicked.

Pandu’s third son shakes his head, and Ashwatthama deflates in visible relief. “Don’t tell ‘im.”  
  
“Why ? I do not doubt he would be pleased —“

The door to the Archer’s room closes in his face, and Arjuna exhales.

“How odd.”

When one’s father is famed enough to end up in the Throne, wouldn’t you want to greet them, smile with them, reestablish the connection you had in your life ? He is sure that if Pandu or Indra appeared, he would have rushed to touch his feet and embrace his father. It is the least he could do to a man snatched away before Arjuna could ever know him.

But this is what Ashwatthama wants, and as a kshatriya, at the very least Arjuna does not mind leaving him be.

“Has the feared warrior, scourge of the battlefields and the Pandavas, taken to hiding like a frightened animal when things become remotely unfavourable for him ?”

Karna is much less forgiving and understanding than their Master and other Servants are when he’s tasked with taking food for the unruly Archer, who hasn’t vacated his room in days. The man’s teeth and tongue are spears, arrows and swords, and he uses them with wild abandon as to whoever is hurt by them. His piercing, blunt honesty and transparency is something Ashwatthama can respect about that sutaputra, irregardless of how he is at other times — namely, Duryodhana’s bootlicker.

“Shut yer mouth.” Grumbling, he takes the curry and rice from Karna’s hands and the carton of milk. He’s mulled over his thoughts, over his words, for days, wondering how best to show his face to his own father. What will his first words be — what if he declares himself Drona’s son, only for Drona to hide his face in shame at the knowledge granted to him by the Throne that his son became a child killer ?

“Hiding from him will do nothing.” Karna states the obvious, before going into his usual tactic — a personal attack, only it’s two-pronged on both of Bharadvaj’s descendants. “He too launched Brahmastras at common soldiers who had never seen an astra before. He too killed Abhimanyu—“

\--Ashwatthama winces at the name and the memories of the bloody fourteenth day it brought—

“—and disregarded the rules of war. If anything, he should not judge you for what you have done.”  
  
“Parikshit.”

The name makes Karna quirk an eye. He probably knows of that boy, but chooses to allow Ashwatthama to speak of it.

  
“A Brahmastra wouldn’t cut it, so I shot a Brahmashirsha astra into Abhimanyu’s wife’s womb. Cursed the world to be without Pandavas. Then that damn Krishna cursed me back, had Arjuna tear the gem from my head.“

As a matter of fact, it still feels odd to feel the mani gem on his head and not a gaping pus-and-blood filled hole.

“Killing an unborn child. That is definitely against dharma. But so were many things we did during that war — Kauravas and Pandavas both. Though if Drona can love Arjuna after he watched on as he was lied to and killed, I do not see why your crime should suddenly remove your relationship with him.”

“It’s not the same !“  
  
“Arjuna also attempted to kill you and his brother in law, and made a fool of him in Jayadratha’s killing. Yet, Drona does not begrudge him for it. As for you — did he not do penance for months to ensure his son possessed Shiva’s own valiance ?” Karna stands up and turns to leave.

“Do not forget, Rudra avatara — Arjuna is only a favoured sishya. You are his son.”

Two in the morning is when he finally leaves his room to get more milk, knowing his father sleeps like a log, and then promptly wonders which deva out there still hates him (is it Krishna ? Damn Yadava) after he runs into the last person he wants to see.

Arjuna’s Alter self has a metal spoon in a cup of chocolate ice cream and a look on his face that suggests he saw this meeting coming a long time ago. Oh, and from his tail swings the milk carton.

Is it _empty_?!

Damn Clairvoyance.

He’s about to turn his back and return to his room when Arjuna Alter’s voice pierces the silence.

“Archer.”

“Can’t ya change back to the original Arjuna or sumthin’ ? !”

“At the moment, full reclaimation of humanity is impossible.” One spoonful of the sweet treat enters his mouth. “This is the closest I am able to get to the idea of “Arjuna, the human”, even with Ascension taken into consideration.”

“Just say ya can’t. So much for an omnipotent god.”

“I am not the perfect god the other version of ‘me’ was in that Lostbelt. Being unable to return to my former state…that is as much a proof that I, Arjuna, am human, as it is proof that a god can never regress into one.”

“Spare me th’ philosophical crap and get to th’ point. You ain’t making sense ramblin’ like that, ya know.”

“As my Archer self says, is your constant irritation’s cause a deficiency in calcium ? But you seem tall enough —“

_Why is it always calcium deficiency ?!_

Ashwatthama loses patience and swings the chakra at him. Arjuna Alter (can he just call him Godjuna for the convenience ?) serenely dodges out of the way, even having the cheek to consume more of his ice cream in the process. The carton, held by the prehensile extension, is flung into the trashcan, confirming one of Ashwatthama’s greatest fears.

Also confirming that Arjuna Alter is a damn showoff.

“Why’re you even up here ?”  
  
“Ah, Gudako asked me to try out this treat she called ‘ice cream’. Something about thinking I would look…’cute’ while eating it ? Irrespective of my appearance when eating, it is not an unwelcome flavour…Krishna would appreciate the milk in it.”

The way he talks about Vishnu’s avatar is certain. There are no maybes, perhapses or mights. It is the surety that comes with sharing your soul with another. Ashwatthama almost wishes he had someone who would know exactly the depths of his heart in that situation — they might know what to do with the issue regarding his father.

But he’s no one born of the divine, discounting his Rudra avatar. He’s only human.

  
“Yes, you are.” Godjuna speaks as if he could read Ashwatthama’s mind (he probably can, what with being a mishmash of an entire pantheon of divinities), a melancholic smile overcoming his features. He looks so much like a younger Arjuna it unnerves Ashwatthama.

“You are human. And just like ‘myself’, you too are a hero.”  
  
“I killed them.” The Violation of Chivalry skill is as much a source of power as it is a brand on his soul that shamefully speaks of his disgusting deed, like Krishna’s three-thousand-year curse that had left festering sores all over his body. It and what it signifies flashes back in his memories whenever he sees Arjuna — though it is more a brutal reminder than a source of regret. Srutakarma’s neck broke _so easily_ under his rough grip — the boy had never thought a thing had happened until Yama noosed his soul. At first he wonders how he could have so willingly murdered the sons of the same boys he trained with at the ashram, and then he thinks of Duryodhana’s crushed thighs, his father’s headless body, Hastinapur’s utterly annihilated army, and the regret vanishes like smoke blown away.

“In a manner synonymous with adharma. Perhaps, as a human, that hero will not forgive you. But death of the physical body is not death of the soul. They returned to members of the gods in Devaloka when their time was up, that is all.” Godjuna’s detached tone is a far cry from the quiet, sheepish child he, or rather the man the gods employ as vessel, used to be. “Grudges are not welcome or needed in Svarga. At least, this is what the god within me knows.”

Is this an odd form of forgiveness from Arjuna (albeit, his divine self) ? Whatever. He’ll take it — it’s the closest he might ever get from the archer of the Pandavas.

“I cannot say what your father might think. He may reject you. He may accept you. He may disown you. Yet, akarma is not a wise choice.”  
  
Akarma — he means inaction, though in a smaller sense: a son fearing his father’s disapproval. It is no secret that Ashwatthama lives and breathes for his father and friends. For the former to despise him is something he fears he could never take, never live with.

“Go. You cannot live your whole life here with neither of you knowing each other exists. And your father cares for you still. I, Arjuna, am sure of it.” Godjuna’s wistful smile makes Ashwatthama wonder if there is someone he too wishes were here with him, yet fears being a disappointment to. They are not quite different, something inside him whispers: both of them twisted by their own grief into something inhuman and alien from those that knew them as they once were.

“Don’t you know ?” He sighs. The ice cream cup he’s eating from has been finished and quickly discarded into the trash can. Now, the god hovers high up with knees drawn to his chest, looking for all the world like a simple…child.

Ashwatthama thinks then of fire-births and lotus perfume, a dark complexion that entranced kshatriyas from all corners of the continent, and a revolving fish reflected in oil.  
  
“It’s her.”

“Can you bring him over ta my room or somethin’ ? I…I want ta meet him.”

The door creaks open and Ashwatthama swallows.

“Is it a new astra you want me to see, Arjuna ? Or a bow—“

His father doesn’t finish that sentence before it opens, heads turn, and Ashwatthama stands before him, head bowed. Fear seizes every inch of his body, and everything he wants to say cannot find purchase on his tongue. Regret flashes through his mind, and he longs to close the door and return to the safety of his room. His fingers twine and twitch nervously, and he dares not look up to know if what lies in those eyes is a father’s love or a father’s shame.

But then all of that is erased away by white — the white of Drona-his father’s robes, the white that replaces the noise screaming curses in his mind, the white that is tranquil and peaceful and warm.

His father’s arms are around him without regard for the curses he’s accumulated, without regard for the murderer that his own son became. The sight that quickly comes to him in his mind’s eye is a father is simply hugging his son, openly weeping with barely concealed happiness. Drona forgoes the custom of letting Ashwatthama touch his feet first — that alone proves to Ashwatthama just how happy his father is that the death he thought Shiva’s avatar suffered did not come to pass, or rather, just how happy Bharadvaj’s son is that they were able to meet again.

His sins may never be forgotten or forgiven (such words cannot be taken lightly when the offence in question has taken lives that can never be remade), but like most of those in Chaldea, Ashwatthama comes to wonder if even one cursed to become a blood-soaked, diseased immortal can learn to live as something greater than his own past.

And for the moment, he allows himself to embrace his father, the constant rage bubbling within him soothed if only for a moment ; allows himself to soak in the joy of their reunion.

“My son,” Drona’s voice is between sobs and gasps of joy. “My son.”

“Appa.” Ashwatthama’s next words are inaudible to anyone else but his own father. “’M back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i’ve wanted to write this since i wish drona was in fgo. anyways i hope this was alright ! i’m still trying to nail their personalities...waah.


	3. interlude: bhamaschal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> interlude for assassin kamadeva.
> 
> disclaimer: i own nobody in this fic.
> 
> ( also, i'm trying out a new character and suffering through some sickness, please bear with my sucky updates )

“Great job, Master. As well as Assassin...Kamadeva. All enemies’ readings have disappeared.” Mash’s voice comes through staticky on the communicator, confirming the dispatchment of the wyvern enemies. The scantily dressed woman only looks up with a hint of surprise.

“Don’t tell me that’s the end already...ah well. Really, making a god of love feel all serious - and then bringing her out to kill some small fry ? I wonder if trying so hard was all for nothing…” 

Before Ritsuka can reply, the telltale tunnelling of a Rayshift occurs. They’re both sucked into the vortex, back home to Chaldea, and the last thing she glimpses is the almost sad smile of the Divine Spirit.

  
  
  


Nighttime dawns without much occasion, save the conspicuous absence of the young woman in the cafeteria during dinner. Ritsuka, who cares for each of her Servants with the fierceness of a flame, cannot help but notice it, pause and frown, before a few words from Anne behind her spur her forwards, and soon any thought of the Assassin is lost in the hubbub of the cafeteria crowd.

Dreaming, however, is something far more eventful. It is true that Servants sometimes share memories of their past lives with their Master, but these events have been rare even with the vast array of Servants she’s summoned.

  
  


Ritsuka awakens near a babbling river, the grass beneath her feet lush and crisp. A whooshing sound causes her ears to perk up, and she swiftly veers around.

The culprit...a boy with a bow ?

His skin is dark and he aims with one eye shut from atop a large parrot, big enough to be twice of her own height easily. His target is a man smeared with ash, snakes twining around him. As she watches the scene with an almost plummeting feeling in her gut, she sees one of the boy’s pink arrows strike the man in his shoulder.

Instantly, the man’s eyes shoot open, and he lets out a cry.

It is like nothing she’s ever heard before — a roar that could split the sky. The boy flees behind the trees, which shed flowers even faster, as if desperate to protect him.

Unfortunately…

“You !” The man vocalises a growl, and the eye on his forehead opens. It is with dread that Ritsuka realises the man is Shiva himself — the one who burnt Kama into ashes.

She reaches out to shriek anything, a warning, even just a scream, but then some invisible power flings her to the ground with its recoil, as the full force of ascetic power and the Destroyer’s own strength bathe the boy in light that does not abate until his very atoms and concept become ash.

To his credit, he did not scream. Or perhaps, he had simply been unable to do so before he was destroyed.

  
  
  
  


_ hurtshurtshurtshurtshurtsithurtsithuuuuurts ! _

_ notfairnotfairnotfair ! hurtshurtsitspainful PAIN _

_ why is it always me that has to do this why not someone else why can’t that stupid hag seduce her own husband why love why me why stupid Indra damn Parvati why _

_ —Is it because I’m a demon lord ? I didn’t ask for Mara ! I didn’t ask didn’t ask to be this !— _

  
  
  
  


_...Aah. It hurt, but now this...it’s so cold. _

_ The cosmos are cold. The stars are so faraway. They’re cold too. My body is so, so, cold... _

_ Love...you’re turning me into disseminated love ? _

_ I don’t want to have to keep at this job...I just want to not be in pain… _

_ I can’t be loved. _

_ I can’t be loved, because I am a god of love. _

_...If I just give love, then...then, that’s fine, right ? _

  
  
  
  


_ I  _ **_want_ ** _ to be  _ **_to be_ ** _ loved  _ **_given love_ ** _. _

  
  
  
  


Ritsuka wakes at six in the morning, and knows who she should seek.

  
  
  


Her Master suddenly invading her room is unexpected to say the least. As is the question she poses. Typically, Kama would have shooed her away, but she’s been bored the past few days. Besides, it’s not like her presence is as hatefully dreadful as that Indian archer…

—Oh, but back to the question.

“Kamadeva, why do you despise love ?”

She could laugh.  **_Don’t you know, foolish Master ?_ **

_ There was once a boy with a sugarcane bow. The boy had to give everyone love. But as a consequence of that, he was lonely and unloved. Because giving all love and taking none in return - this meant the boy could not be tied to any one person. Even so, he rode forth upon his parrot each day to shower humans in a starry sea of dreamy love. His arrows pierced hearts and joined them together, but he could never enjoin his heart with another’s. Furthermore, his duty necessitated that he bear witness to falling outs - people stopped loving each other, whether for excess or lack of love, or a myriad of other reasons. Even if both had been shot by the boy’s arrows of assured affections. _

_ And so, the boy grew to detest love. _

_ He hated the pathetic humans that relied upon that love to thrive and grow. He hated himself for giving them love. The boy’s job became a boring chore. _

_   
_ _ Thereafter, the boy became a demon lord of love when his body was incinerated. Once more, this was because of love. _

_...No. That’s not quite right. Let’s start again. Let me tell you about the ‘real’ me. _

_ Once, there was a boy ordered to spread love in the world. He took to this task with eagerness and joy, thinking there was nothing quite as beautiful as love in the world, and praising the creator god for giving him the joy of such a task. The creator had even ordered that one of his sons would present the boy with a wife. Obviously excited, he shot his first hail of arrows. _

_ But when his arrows were shot, lo and behold: they pierced right into the heart of the creator god and his sons. Unfortunately, one of the creator god’s daughters was walking by then. The incestuous attraction was instantaneous, and the boy stood by in shock and fear. Not helping matters was that another god - the god of destruction - had been nearby, and witnessing the creator and his own son craving their daughter romantically made him laugh at their antics and their shame. The daughter ? Oh, she committed suicide after that shameful act by her own father and brother. _

_ Eventually, when the realisation of having desired a daughter - or sister - caught up to them, they were horrified and embarrassed, and began to perspire. From the son’s sweat was born a girl - the creator god’s daughter’s reincarnation, with whom the boy became besotted with and who was besotted by the boy. That girl became his wife, but their marital bliss was dampened by the creator’s curse. _

_ “The god of destruction laughed at me because of you. So you will be burnt to ash by him in the future !” _ __   
  


_ Terrified out of his wits now, the boy pleaded for mercy. Having calmed after that curse, the creator god told him that the curse could not be revoked, but not to worry - he would later be revived. A small comfort, however: the pain from burning still had to be endured by that boy, as would the sensation of drifting, incorporeal in the world. _

_ Because of love, he was cursed. Because of love, he was burnt to ashes. Because he was love, he could not stop giving it to everyone. But then again...I don’t think he ever held a grudge. Not against the one who burnt him to death, or those that had made him shoot that arrow in the first place, or even the indirect cause of his death. _

_ Wasn’t that boy foolish, my Master ? But his foolish ideals...ha...I don’t think, like me, he ever gave up on love. I don’t think he ever forgot what had made love so beautiful. _

“That’s the legend of Kama ?”

“Yes. The puranas all give different spins to them, but the outcome is the same. “Kama”, or rather the one from Pan-Human History, marries Rati, is cursed by Brahma, and ends up burnt to ashes by Shiva. However...I never married that other person. I only did my job as a lonely god of love with zero motivation, until I was disseminated into ashes across the cosmos.”

“I understand.”

Had Rati been the reason why Kamadeva loved and Ananga ceased to ?

“This is why I ask of you, Master.” Kama’s lips draw back, exposing pearly white teeth that are too straight, too uniform. “Fujimaru Ritsuka - show me why love once felt wonderful to me, who died because of love.”

“I can’t show you that right now.”

“Fufu, so you’re confessing you’re a useless and incompetent Master ? That you, who gives your love to other people, even that hatefully-Shiva-scented Archer, cannot show one god why love means so much ?”

“No.” Ritsuka stares into the starry orbs without a hint of apprehension. “It’s because love is something that doesn’t come at will to everyone. Your arrows - Arjuna told me of them. They’re passion and carnal desire. True love...that is something different. You died because of momentary passion, not because of ‘love’.”   
  
“You’re doubting a god of love’s arrows of love ~ ufufu, FUFUFU !”

Suddenly, her laughter rises in pitch and volume, causing Ritsuka to startle. Yet she does not shrink back from the cackling girl, whose giggles cause her small body to writhe unnaturally. At last, when Kama calms, her glittering eyes zero in on the Master with a gaze like a predator spotting prey.

“Very well. Perhaps you’re wrong. Perhaps these arrows are only passion and infatuation and not love, but you will find that love so often springs from those.” A glowing purple dart is in her hands next, lazily being examined. “Should I stab you with one of these, then ~ ? It would get rid of the mana sources for those horrible Shiva-related deities. And I am still technically a Beast, you know ?”

“...” Ritsuka’s well aware that the childish vessel before her possesses power unfathomable and unapproachable to most of Chaldea. But she is still the Master of the Assassin, and it is her sincere desire that the bitter and disillusioned deity may come to smile once more.

“The love you want might happen someday. But it won’t happen in the blink of an eye.” She takes a deep breath and bites the bullet, some sort of gut feeling telling her that the spirit behind the mask of Beast III/Lapse is at heart a pained god grown jaded with the world and with its most beautiful component: love. “However...I hope you find the wonderful kind of love you want to believe in.”

“Ufufu. You sound so sure of yourself.” Ananga’s grin is creepy, frankly speaking - all teeth and no heart. The arrow, at least, dematerialises at her whim, and she spreads her bare hands. The cosmos are reflected in rivulets of dark pink and purple in the ends of her limbs. “But I like your idealistic fantasies, Master~. Maybe one day they will come true.”

  
  



	4. 3.1 - the questions only you can ever answer (bird’s eye)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My version of Arjuna's Interlude - dragged into a dream, Ritsuka and Kiritin bear witness to the Awarded Hero's battle against the demons of his past.

_ He held up a shining white palm to the skies, asking for mercy, discussing battlefield regulations. My Gandiva dipped in my palm, the dharma I had been raised in unconsciously obeying his words. The arrow sagged to aim at the chariot floor. _

_ I stared at that golden head, saw the muscles in that pure white back stand out in sinewy veins. He knelt, felled not by a kshatriya, but merely by a sunken chariot wheel. His own charioteer unsuccessfully tried to calm the horses. Milk-white stallions, similar in colour to my own.  _

_ That charioteer was Nakula and Sahadeva’s uncle. The rumoured trick Duryodhana had played to bring the Madras king on his side was most unsightly. But a harsh truth had been known to me ever since this war began: bonds meant nothing on the battlefield.  _

_ Not even for a grandfather. Not even, I would later learn, for a nephew. _

**_“Why do you hesitate, Partha ?”_ **

_ Govind’s words cut into my mind, distracting me from my reverie.  _

**_“Do you forget your son ?”_ **

_ Abhimanyu — white hot hatred flared to life in my veins. My beautiful son. My child, swallowed up by those I should have loved, killed by the same men whose feet he should have touched, who should have doted on him as one of their own. My son, murdered by those he should have loved. _

**_“Or your wife ?”_ **

_ Draupadi’s unbound hair came to me in dizzying clarity. I saw her pearly whites gnash together at the court in Hastinapura. I heard the howling of jackals as she made her dreadful, bloody declaration, her promise of revenge and to see the wives of Hastinapura’s men widowed after the thirteen years. I saw years of injustice a woman of her stature should never have had to suffer, and yet, even when all of that was laid before her: I saw that she never regrets my marriage to her. _

_ She was more than I deserved. He was more than I deserved. I lost one to the tyranny of the fight. I would not lose a fight for the honour of the other. _

_ I heard thunder resound, distant and close all at once, in the air and in my veins. The light in the skies seemed to descend faster. I had thought then that the sun’s charioteer was hastening to spur his horses on, hastening to set so that Suryadev would not have to witness this battle.  _

**_“Did you know what he called your wife, then ?”_ **

_ \- At that time, I wondered why - _

_ I heard the word drop from Krishna’s lips. I felt myself go numb, felt myself freeze. And then the numbness became anger. _

_ [A warrior should not kill in hatred.] _

_ Even knowing that, I raised that bow. _

_ I shot that arrow. _

_...I did not stop shooting until I had mangled him into something less human than meat for the carrion creatures.  _

**_Ah, Master. The killing of my brother is not the entirety of my shame. The shame is that I fought that war. That I stayed my hand. That I…the list is enormous._ **

**_These crimes are not fit for someone who should serve you._ **

  
  


****अर्जुन  
  
  


“....Four.”

“Bluff.”   


“Damn !”

After a mission, it is his Master and the Demi-Servant (Mash, was it ?) he chances upon playing a game of cards in the break room. The Throne whispers it is a game of  _ bluff _ — something to do with gambling, judging from the stakes: a respectable pile of small, sticky desserts he’s come to learn are called  _ mochi _ .

  
“Oh...Arjuna-san ? Do you want to play a game ?”

They’ve noticed him, it seems. At first, something compels him to join — then he remembers ivory dice, and his smile tightens. Refusing as politely as possible, the man continues down the white hallways, ruminating on the events that had transpired since his summoning several months prior. Singularities, Lostbelts, Demon Pillars, Crypters — even an alternate version of himself in a vastly different India.

This new world is so strange, so foreign to one called forth from a  _ yuga _ that has already passed. But at the same time...there is beauty. The orange-haired girl who struggled, who saw death stare her in the face, who was close enough to feel Yamaraj’s noose loop around her soul, is beautiful. Her unbreakable will in the face of a thousand difficulties is admirable. Yet most of all, the reason why the unbreakable bow Gandiva is pledged to her: it is because Fujimaru Ritsuka is a heroine of her own tale. Despite all the pain she’s borne, there is not one speck of hesitation as she strides forwards.

To someone who can only bear the regrets of a bloodied path, that loveliness is the reason why she can never see that other side of him.

_ As a father, I failed to save my own children. _

_ As a husband, I stood by as my wife was insulted.  _

_ As a kshatriya, I couldn’t even save the rest of my camp. _

_ As a student, I fought my own teacher. _

_ As a grandson...I killed my own grandsire. _

_ It feels as if...there was a song. A song I do not remember. A song from a man with lotus eyes… _

_...were he here now, would he laugh at me ? _

Heroic Spirits don’t require rest, but that night, Arjuna lies down in his room and stares at the ceiling until the world goes black.

It’s better to hand the reins over to unconsciousness, sometimes.

_ Something spins in the vortex of sleep. Something draws in  _ **_her_ ** _ consciousness like a black hole. _

_...A red plain. White froth at the mouth of silvery stallions. The sun high in the sky. An arrow embedded in a diadem, turning sickly purple-black with venom. _

_ Two men, duelling on a blazing plain, their charioteers only their silent witness. Around them, an army has been cut down — men lie bleeding on the rust-red soil, their blood only staining it more. Bhumi chokes on the crimson lifeblood, her mouth filled with the taste of too-young death. _

__ **_“Did he speak of dharma when he shot your son down ?”_ **

_ Karna ! Arjuna ! _ __

**_“Did he speak of dharma when he called your wife a whore ?”_ **

_ Karna…? _

_ Arjuna…? _

_ Krishna…? _

**_“So what right does he have to talk of it now ?”_ **

_ The fatal words come. Ritsuka sees the man kneeling bow his head at last in shame. _

**_“...By the truth, if I have been adherent to dharma, may this arrow slay my enemy.”_ **

_ She sees Karna’s lips curve in a small, sad smile. _

_ She sees Arjuna’s face warp into an inhuman expression of grief and rage. _

_ She sees the crescent-tipped arrow pluck off the head of the raja of Anga. _

_ Victory comes only with the price of litres of blood. _

Before Fujimaru can run forwards, the scenery twists, and she finds herself falling.

**_So you see it...the truth of my sin._ **

  
  


(narration style from here on: bold italics is arjuna’s personal thoughts, italics is the [spoiler] whispering.)

(i humbly apologise for any gratitious hindi you see)

  
  


“Where are we ?”

“I do not have a clear idea.”

“...Actually, it seems that we’ve fallen into a Servant’s dream. One with connections to you — me — us.”

The first Servant Ritsuka sees is a youthful-looking boy with azure protrusions from his head, and a curving aureate tail. Messy sable hair falls over his fringe, and around him dance multicoloured orbs evocative of planets. The next one is a more familiar sight: dressed in pure white and dark blue, in every sense an image of a perfect hero.

Kiritin, and Arjuna.

Referring to him solely by his class as an Alter hadn’t sat well with Ritsuka, and she’d pestered him for a more appropriate title until the name ‘Kiritin’ had come to him. So Kiritin he was, and Kiritin he would be. 

“My apologies, Master. To drag you into danger…”

“It’s fine, Arjuna.” The girl beams up at him. “We just have to look for a way out, don’t we ? Shouldn’t be too hard.”

_ That smile of yours. Your wholehearted trust. I can’t bring myself to expose my past to you. Please, my Master...this Archer has only one request: please, stay blind to my shame. _

“...I can feel some wind from over there.” Kiritin indicates a northern passageway, already hovering towards it. “Stay alongside us, Master. It would not be wise to lose each other here.”

_ Clink. Clink. Clink. _

“Do you hear that ?” Orange locks scatter as her head shoots up, looking from Servant to Servant with quizzical eyes. Both shake their heads in unison — an action she finds both cute and unsettling. “That noise…voices ?”

_...of...behold...assembled. _

_...inauspicious...nothing good...family...battle... _

“...It may just be the labyrinth’s own  _ maya _ , attempting to deceive you. Please hold on to me, Master.” Kiritin proffers an arm ; Ritsuka takes it and both forge on. Arjuna, first in line, suddenly pauses, causing the Master and the floating Servant she clings to to nearly bump into him.

“There are bones on the ground. Watch your step. Furthermore...” The Awarded Hero cuts himself off, closing his eyes. Ritsuka feels the mana around him flare, and guesses he’s attempting to use the Clairvoyance gained from his Servant status to construct a mental map of the area.

“There is nothing above us,” he says when his eyes reopen. “It seems like descent is the only route out of this place.”

“As long as nothing down there will harm Master.” Kiritin shrugs. “Lead the way...Arjuna.”

अर्जुन

They don’t walk for long before their first enemy shows its face. A shambling skeletal structure, less man than mere puppeted bone, moves its jaw in a vulgar mimicry of human speech as it raises its sword to strike at Arjuna. The bones that would have been the framework of a mouth had it still been human open and shut, as if it longs to say something.

With a single pull on Gandiva that leaves its signature thunderclap-sound ringing like a bell in the narrow stone paths, it clatters onto the ground as disjointed bones, silent evermore. Kiritin, throughout the battle, seems oddly interested in the air around them.

“...The miasma...is getting stronger. If...we walk further down...the magical energy present is almost...stifling. It’s...nothing like what a regular Servant...might give out.”

“But if we stay here, we have no hope of getting out. The Mystic Code should protect me well enough.” Jaw set, the magus looks at a flight of stairs the skeleton from before had seemed to be guarding: they lead down into a spiral of blackness. “Let’s go, Arjuna. Kiritin.”

_...destroy...family…? _

_...will not fight. _

Arjuna ignites the tip of an arrow with a bolt of lightning. The blue flare sparks in the darkness, and they walk further on, Ritsuka trying to push the whispering voices from the back of her head.

_ Who speaks, and who listens ? _

The question is as abrupt in coming to the forefront to her mind as it is absurd.

अर्जुन

“Here.” Arjuna pauses before a set of heavy wooden doors. “The concentration of energy is at its strongest here. It’s at the level of a Servant...certainly not one to be underestimated.”

“Definitely strong.” Ritsuka tilts her head. “Any idea who it could be ?”   
  


“...As a matter of fact, it has an incredibly similar feeling to a certain someone. So…” the expression he wears tightens. “Master. Do not interfere. I cannot guarantee your safety, even if I am the best Servant.”

The ornate doors swing open, and four arrows stream out. Two bury themselves at Arjuna’s feet, and the remaining two flit past his head.  _ They are not near misses, but rather declarations of war,  _ Kiritin informs her as he scoops her up and pulls her to the side.

“So you’ve come, Drona’s sishya.”

Arjuna answers the arrows with his own — two at the opponent’s feet, two travelling by the side of his head. Ritsuka sees but one action, yet four separate results: proof of the archer’s incredible talent. Kiritin pulls her into the side of the chamber, behind a stone statue from which she peeks out to gaze at the one that has challenged Arjuna.

He is a man with ebon hair and a simple wooden bow. A white cloth prevents his fringe from falling onto his face, and his clothes are humble. Yet the most startling thing she sees is that his right thumb is a smooth stump.

“Eklavya.” Arjuna stands resolute in the face of the one man that might have been a far greater archer than he, had Drona’s preferential bias not made it otherwise.  _ He would have been a good rival _ .

But in the end, he assisted Jarasandha, and died to the Sudarshana chakra. Dharma cares not for the sorrow and pain one endures, but for what they make of themselves after that — and Eklavya’s choice was simply the wrong one.

“Arjuna.” The Nishada’s gaze is void of anything but resentment. “Greatest archer in all three worlds.”

His voice drips with sarcasm.

“Do the bards also speak of the dreams you trampled on for such a  _ wonderful _ status ?”

**_It was my envy. I envied him, whose hands were lighter than mine. Acharya saw my envy and took it upon himself to redress it. If he could not make my own hands faster, lighter — then all he had to do was bring that tribal boy’s own divine archery down to the earth._ **

**_A deliberate sabotage disguised as a gurudakshina: his right thumb. He would never shoot with that same lightness again._ **

**_How can someone with this envy fight by your side, Master ?_ **

Arjuna, to his credit, does not waver. Psychological warfare could have worked on him, but the minute those dark fingers touch a bow, the nature he bears as a kshatriya shines forth: a hero made for war. Gandiva remains steady, the arrow fixed at its rest sharpened steel that will find a home between the tribal’s eyes.

“Kiritin, why don’t you help him ?” Ritsuka finds herself asking. Despite this, deep within herself, she knows the answer he will give.

“You know the reason why, my Master.”  _ This is the dream of the blessed hero, the dream where his chance to overcome his regrets, his past life, is. If I help him, even if I am ‘him’, then it will be for nothing. Besides...the trials of a hero are not the trials of a god. _

_...This is a demon he must kill himself, a battle less physical than mental. But I do not doubt he will succeed. After all, he is a hero who rises. _

“I…” Arjuna moves to speak, but Eklavya cuts him off in seconds with a scathing volley of arrows. To an observer, they are simple wooden ones, yet the way they cut deep grooves into the stone floor suggest that they’re more akin to bullets than anything else. Left without a choice, he returns fire, Gandiva marking a line of scorch marks. The archers twist, leap and dodge, unceasing streams of arrows issuing like the Ganges from their hands.

If she called out to him now, he would not respond. Kiritin moves them from position to position as their combat devastates the room around them, finally having to bolt out of the room as their ricocheting shots decimate it. At the same time, the voices she’s heard intensify in Ritsuka’s head, and her teeth grit in a paltry attempt to alleviate their noise.

_...law...universe. _

_...happens for good. _

_ You...right...work...fruit… _

_...soul...born...die... _

**_Eklavya’s severed right thumb does not mean he cannot use his bow with his left, even though his firing is far worse. I shift my own Gandiva to my left hand, a silent acknowledgement of the rival I could have had. Left-handed, we duel, memories of my life in the ashram flickering around me._ **

“You think of yourself as so special, Pandava ?” Years of resentment have fostered his hatred, and the Nishada lets it out in the form of a scream. His archery lifts, spurred on by the sores of a wound that has never healed in his heart, and Arjuna’s focus slips ever so slightly towards defensive movements.

“Son of Indra, son of Kunti ! If you were of a lower caste, you would have faced my fate ! You would never be known as the Awarded Hero, as greatest of all archers ! Drona’s partiality as a guru simply fell on you, that was all !”

Eklavya’s voice is as hoarse as it is bitter. Their arrows abate for a moment, revealing a horizontal slit, dripping scarlet along the Pandava’s right cheek, and a score of gashes on Eklavya’s left thigh. Ritsuka cranes her neck while Kiritin holds her closely to himself, his orbiting astras ready to neutralise any stray shots.

Gandiva’s wielder wipes the liquid from his cheek with a single ivory glove and lets his hand come down stained. As a Heroic Spirit, the wound should have closed — and yet he feels somehow  _ alive  _ when it stings like a human cut should.

“That is why...to prove I was always your better, to prove I don’t need  _ Drona _ …” The prince’s growl is animalistic, and mana surges to life in a flash of green behind him. 

**_His Noble Phantasm — !_ **

“You will know what it means to be denied and forgotten. Left behind to watch people I could have surpassed go beyond me, just because they were given everything I was forced to give up ! Let’s settle this, Arjuna !”

**_“Gurudakshina: Teer Ka Nirmaan !”_ **

From prana, wooden arrows materialise notched in his bow, spinning into position once fired. His agility seems to have elevated — that is not any illusion, as evidenced by the mana-constructed right thumb that now sits atop the former stump.

The talent that Eklavya could have had, had he not been forced to give it up all to satisfy Drona’s wishes. In that gurukul, both he and Arjuna had shown nascent skill with the bow, but like how some believed that clipping off seed pods allowed the bulbs of flowers to store energy, so too had one part been sacrificed for the betterment of another.

Everywhere he looks, there are arrows, constructing a mana-based cage around him. The dog that could not bark because of the arrows shot into and around its mouth, creating what functioned as a prototype muzzle — that was surely the legend that had at least been partially sublimated into this Noble Phantasm.

He cannot spare a glance for where Kiritin or his Master are — if a man as consumed by rage as Eklavya is now notices them, his arrows might turn towards them instead. The best he can do is raise Gandiva, clench his teeth, and brace himself. Eklavya’s speech leaves his mind in disarray — the arrows grow heavy in suddenly clumsy fingers.

— the surrounding walls go white as they entomb him —

_ “How unlike you to falter in your resolve,” a bright voice chides. It is not a father scolding his son, but the sound of a mockingly disappointed peer. “Arjuna who shot the bird’s eye from the ground — since when did you learn to see everything but that eye ? Did you think only your birth made you eligible to be a skilled archer ? Sacrifice is seductive and deserving of praise. But if it comes at the cost of further improvement, then it becomes senseless.” _

_ He can imagine that clear, bright voice smiling fondly at him. His eyes widen with its next words. _

_ “Eklavya’s path was chosen by him, no ? Your path was walked by you, fought for by you, to the very end. Do not let anyone trample upon your efforts.” _

**_Wait_ ** — !!

— too late to reach out to whoever speaks, but enough to activate a quick  **Mana Burst** twinned with  **Agni Gandiva** ’s True Name Release, incinerating each arrow with the flames of Agni as they rocket towards him. From the veil of fire, the wealth-winner Dhananjaya steps out, teeth grit. Gravel, soot and dust stain his white clothes, but not a single one of the prana-formed arrows has impacted his skin.

“...Acharya swore to make me into the best of archers. He did not gift me the skills. I worked for each of them.” Arjuna raises Gandiva once more, newfound tenacity in his eyes.

“In the end, I was also to blame for your severed thumb. The jealousy...I worried having a superior. I feared not being the best of archers. I may never make amends for what you have endured.”

His eyes flash with conviction.

“But at the end, this duel was simply the result of the path we walked to its end.”

Hollow words, they might sound to Drona’s denied sishya, but he who fought in the Dwarpa Yuga’s worst war knows more of what it means to have committed wrongs that can never be redressed than many others, to have pursued a single target until the ground he walked on was not practice dummies but limp corpses of men that could have been someone’s father, grandfather, teacher, brother. He knows more than the Arjuna that worshipped Drona with bright eyes of what it means to question your dharma, to shoot arrows with your eyes clouded by tears for the sake of righteousness.

The string of the bow is pulled to his ear, an azure projectile loaded. Eklavya copies the action — it would be, to more modern Heroic Spirits, the ancient equivalent of a quick-draw battle.

But the effects of his Noble Phantasm have faded — the right thumb constructed of mana is already beginning to disintegrate. The arrow that takes him in the chest takes him cold as death and leaves warm blood gurgling from his chest, while his own shot just barely scrapes Arjuna’s cheek.

_ There are things that will never be fair for those of us who are born into the world unlucky. For one who has experienced nothing but injustice...he should strive for respect, but not for what he has no right to. _

“So...in the end, you win.” Spiteful eyes pierce through Arjuna’s own as he approaches the fallen warrior. Savyasachi holds his gaze with the same eyes that saw the wooden bird in what seems like kalpas ago.

“But this is not the end. There remain two more trials.” He coughs and blood rises as a clot from his chest, staining dark brown skin with rust-red. “If you truly can be a proud kshatriya...if you truly are worthy of being your Master’s Servant, then overcome them.”

The golden dust he dissolves into mixes with the everpresent dust in the room itself, leaving no trace he was ever there but for the Servant who stands in a now silent catacomb, watching as the last remnants of a could-be genius return to the dust.

Palms touch each other in a prayer for his soul.

“There was nothing to it — I won because I never stopped seeking greater heights. You lost because you were denied the chance to even scale that mountain. But your fight...your struggle. It will not be meaningless. As a _kshatriya_ , I swear it.”

Adjusting his quivers, Arjuna finally leaves the room, making eye contact with neither his Master or his Alter, who’s set her down sometime during the battle. The sole hint of acknowledgement he who mires in his own thoughts now gives to them is a single sentence, delivered in a tone so monotonous it lacks even the smallest hint of inflection. He beckons them back into the chamber, where the three witness, behind the podium that Eklavya had once stood upon, a staircase that leads downwards.   
  
“Master...let’s go.”

अर्जुन

“Why do you...deny that you...are a hero ? Why do you choose...only the flaws that...you hold to focus on ?”

Kiritin catches up to Arjuna, who’s gone ahead to scout out the other paths of the labyrinth while their Master rests in a safe alcove nearby.

“Because that is the ugliness behind this heroic self. The ugliness that should never serve underneath a Master like herself. I was almost defeated there — if I lose my worth as a Servant, I am not worth anything else.”

A shake of the head sends black strands twisting.

“Phalguna is worth more than the arrows he can shoot.”

“I doubt Kurukshetra cared for Arjuna the man, and not for Arjuna the archer.”

Something shifts in the horned Berserker’s expression, something sadder.

“Partha,” he whispers, moving closer to stare his counterpart in the eyes and rest a hand upon his shoulder, “even after all those years, I blame myself for making you leave that innocent world of archery.”

Something registers in the gaze, but Kiritin pulls away and vanishes. The archer’s neural signals only translate into verbal words when his counterpart is long gone, but Arjuna still yells the name into the cold, dusty air, uncaring of who hears him.

He suddenly feels the world spin sideways and his vision go black, with that last shouted word echoing in the empty halls.

  
**_“Krishna !_ ** ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you were looking for incredible adherence to lore, not here. if you were looking for good writing, also not here. if you're looking for some shoddily woven wish fulfilment, step right in.
> 
> as always, reviews/criticism would be great & highly appreciated !


	5. 4 - for what reason does the moon weep ?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> arjuna, abhimanyu, and a rayshift that isn't completely forgotten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was largely written while suffering from stomach cramps and starvation. don't be like me, kids.  
> two chapters to compensate for the next few weeks, which i will inevitably be suffering over my exams for.

_ We sing of shredded skies and clouds that cry for joy of devas wearing human flesh finally returning home ; we talk of dust-storms sundered with blood enough to abate them. We sing of the immortal soul and the mortal shell devoured by Agni, we speak of svargaloka gaining thousands of virtuous kings. But let us talk of days when humans were happier, and of children with childish ideals in their hearts. Let us speak of those kshatriyas for whom their first truly great war might be their last, of those who gained the eternal fame of heroes at the largest costs. _

_ Let us talk about the star that was left to die like a dishonoured mortal. _

It starts, as always, with a rayshift gone wrong and turned into an adventure to correct the pseudo-Singularity forming.

It was meant to be a clean, quick affair — reach India and take the Holy Grail. Correct the pseudo-singularity forming, and get back out. Because of his intimate familiarity with the target region, where he and his brothers had spent a year incognito, Ritsuka enlists Arjuna’s and Kiritin’s help. 

They mistakenly first wind up in Dwarka, where the rich leylines and Krishna’s presence mess with the rayshift, then travel to Viratnagar on a breakneck vimana ride. They find carnage dawning on the scene of the infamous cattle raid, and not on the intended side: here a Grail has empowered Duryodhana enough to nearly slaughter Prince Uttara in his chariot, rendered his army impervious to the Sammohana, and the eunuch Brihannada, not yet master of ‘her’ famous astras, fights a desperate simultaneous battle against the greatest of the Kaurava warriors. 

They snatch the Grail with Kiritin’s help, the divine entity casually countering each astra and arrow with his own shots as he replaces Brihannada in the chariot with ‘her’ as his sarathy. Duryodhana reels into unconsciousness and his limp body finally surrenders the Grail after arrows, each one packing the same force as a direct gada blow, smash into his armour and body, shattering its artisan-forged links and splintering bone.

They treat the Virat prince’s wounds, hand Brihannada the clothes of the Kuru party, and finally make a stop-by in Dwarka, preparing to head home.

Or rather, that was how it should have ended.

Instead, karma sees him stopped by the pounding footsteps and repeated yells of a boy. Something familiar itches in his throat, but he pays it no heed, thinking it just another one of Dwarka’s overly excitable children — they resemble their king so much it is almost adorable. 

Still...he’d hoped to avoid any unnecessary detours.

...Nevermind. That boy, no matter what he says to him, will forget everything after the Singularity is corrected.

“Hey ! Hey ! Um...Mr. Jaya !”

Arjuna turns on his heel and looks at the boy running up to him. He can’t be much older than fifteen at the most.

And then he sees the hair, and his heart drops in his stomach.

His hair is lustruous, thick and sapphire-dark — exactly like Govind’s. The skin tone, the set of the jaw, the fingers callused from practise with the bow — just like his own. A forbidden name dances on the tip of his tongue — he cannot blow his own cover now, as much as he wants to dash forwards and embrace the boy, kneel at his feet and beg his pardon for the death sentence his own uncles will unwittingly deliver.

“They said you were a prophet from the future, you know. Princes Samba and Pradyumna.” The boy looks back at the direction of his probably-giggling cousins with eyes too naive and trusting for Arjuna to bear. His heart wrenches, but he does not turn his back and flee despite every cell in his body screaming otherwise. Every moment with this boy is a moment to be savored and locked away in his heart, for there will be none of those left by the time he reaches sixteen moons.

“So...what’ll happen to me later on ? I’m going to fight with my uncles and my father, so I can reclaim the honour those filthy Kaurava bastards took from my aunt !” His sparkling eyes belie the bloodlust within — oh, righteous anger of the young. So precious and so lacking even before Kurukshetra claimed them all.

Deliberately restraining the emotions welling in his chest, Arjuna looks upon the boy, stroking his head in a manner detached enough to never seem more than a friendly stranger.

“What is your name, putra ?”

“Abhimanyu, son of Arjun !” The youth declares, tone clear like a bell, and this confirms the dread welling in his stomach like a fountain.

“They will speak your name for yugas,” Arjuna says at last, clenching his fists to maintain a semblance of stability before all of his sorely tested composure dissolves. Every vowel is an arrow that buried itself in the body of the sixteen-year old whom the boy before him will soon be. Every consonant, a mace blow in the fight that eventually killed him. The wealth-winner whose dharma swore to protect every ally within bowshot of himself yet could not save his son sees the wheel of dharma turn, slowly — a wooden wheel ripped off the rubble of a broken chariot, turned from part of an innocent vehicle into a boy’s last stand.

_ There was not even a strand of hair on his upper lip when warriors seven times his age stabbed him to death. _

“Bards will sing of you. You will be remembered as the greatest of the great.”

A small, small comfort to one who will never be able to enjoy those fruits.

The delighted smile the boy gives him in return before he runs back, nearly forgetting to say his goodbyes — Arjuna thinks that he could spend a year of Brahma’s in the deepest pits of Naraku themselves, and still, nothing will ever cut him quite so deep.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “The formation is hard and our soldiers are practically being ground out by it,” Yudhisthira curses. Behind him Bhima, Nakula and Sahadeva mutter furiously.
> 
> “Someone needs to pierce it. Arjuna...no. Krishna, same as Arjuna. Pradyumna...neutral.”
> 
> “Are we going to lose to this one formation, after all those years ?!” Vrikodara roars in discontent, raising his mace. “I’ll smash those damn Kaurava bastards in ! Let me at it !”
> 
> “Patience, brother — it’s not an easy one to penetrate. If only there was someone…”
> 
> The crowd parts as a too-young sound jumps from the back, a bell unknowingly tolling its own end. At that time, he did not know — so he does not fear the chance of death. Abhimanyu, sole son of Subhadra, looks at his uncles with eager eyes. In his ears ring the words of a someone from a sunny day in Dwarka, an afternoon that would be forgotten to everyone else but Krishna and himself.
> 
> If he can hear words in the womb, absorb knowledge while still a half-formed fetus, then there is no reason why he cannot have a wispy memory of days that should not exist.
> 
> “I know the trick to getting in,” he says, now aware of the army’s eyes on him, looking upon him like they would a saviour. The promised glory that memory had promised him comes at last, and he is not one to question its choice of timing. “I can get us inside — but I don’t know how to leave.”
> 
> “We’ll follow you in, break you out if anything happens. I swear.” responds Yudhisthira, elated at the possibility of hope. “Lead the charge.”
> 
> [—Bards will sing of you. You will be remembered as greatest of the great.—]
> 
> Across the field, Krishna, wading alongside his best friend in a sea of Samsaptakas, looks up at the fading moon’s image in the blue sky and nods towards Chandra with grim acknowledgement.


	6. 3.2 - the questions only you can ever answer (full circle)

_ “Arjuna !” _

Ritsuka’s thumbnails are chewed down to raw nubs, the flesh having turned pinkish a long time ago. Her throat is hoarse and parched, yet she does not notice as she yells the name into unresponsive corridors.

“Master—“

_ “Where is he ?!” _

She whirls on him with such worry evident in her eyes, golden earrings on the side of her head swaying and tinkling against her skin, that he’s forced to admit he’s surprised. Yet he has no doubt that if it was another Servant, she would be just as anxious.

Hah. Their Master is truly one of a kind.

“Maya is difficult...to break,” he says at last. “It was definitely...such a spell...that caused him to vanish. Shouting yourself...voiceless will not...break such spells.”

He holds out a single azure  _ astra _ , calling the power of Varuna. A stream of clear water jettisons from the ground into his Master’s quickly-cupped palms.

“Let us first...rest, then we may...find out how to break the spell.”

Ritsuka gulps the pure liquid greedily, the earrings she has obtained through some means (probably a gift from another Servant) flashing and catching whatever dim light exists in the cavern. She drinks gratefully from the astra’s yield, until approaching footsteps cause her to raise her head. The water spills onto the floor.

“Arj—“

The rest of that word dies in her throat as she beholds the figure. Kiritin quickly pushes her behind himself, and Ritsuka readies her magic, circuits sparking to life and power flowing through her body in a way so inimically natural that she cannot imagine a time when she has not been able to perform this.

If Kiritin, who regards most hostile life as merely ‘evil targets to eliminate’, seems to grow wary at the sight of their new foe, then she cannot think it will be an easy battle.

“My apologies.” The newcomer rests a mace upon their shoulder, black eyes glinting. “Master of Chaldea, and your hateful companion...this is where your unfortunate story ends.”

—In Indian mythology, there is a certain figure: the tenth avatar of Vishnu, who will arrive to cleanse the world from its sin and bring all to the beginning, the golden age of the Satya Yuga. It is he who destroys evil and upholds good. But only in the darkest, most sinful period will he ever appear, and he is destined to be the archenemy of that period’s namesake.—

—It is from that figure that Arjuna (Alter) received the divinity and the Anti-Evil skill to strike down all impurity.—

Kiritin summons the multicoloured astras to his hands, the metallic protrusions hovering behind him shielding Ritsuka from the sight of the demon.

The authority of Kalki recognises that which it is meant to destroy, and with eyes that blaze with divine fury, Kiritin primes astras with the mechanical precision of a gatling gun, the divine weapons sparking fury, as the demon roars and charges, lifting its mace. A split second before both collide, they cry out each other’s name.

“ **_KALKI !_ ** ”

“ **_KALI !_ ** ”

अर्जुन

_ Rested enough, Partha ? _

Sable orbs open to that voice. It is carefree and harrowingly familiar. It is a voice that the world believes dripped poison into his ears like a serpent, but which dispensed only pearls of wisdom.

**_He told me to transfer responsibility for the war onto his shoulders. That I could not do. I could not stand by blameless as he was blamed for everything._ **

**_The least I could do as a ‘hero’ was this._ **

The place he beholds now is bright with torchlight. It smells faintly of incense, its painted walls catching and reflect the small braziers to provide a luminescent glow. The ceiling is painted with heroic feats, and the floor is smooth marble, cold under his bare feet.

. . .Bare ?

Servant, Archer wears shoes. Bare feet are reserved for the man before Archer. There is no longer the familiarity of a white  _ sherwani _ patterned with flowers around him. Instead, armour clanks around him, a kavacha he knows intimately and is sure he would be summoned with had he been Rider, and the gentle weight of a silver diadem decorated with otherworldly stones settles on his head.

But this startling physical change isn’t something to be cared for. The voice that roused him is a lifeline to him — one desperately reached out for. Mentally and verbally, the same name is shouted.

_ “Vasudev !” _

Mercifully, an answer.

_ Partha.  _

“Vasudev, where am I?”

_ You of all people should know. _ Arjuna imagines a low chuckle.  _ Indraprastha. The palace created by you and your brothers, ruled by your wife as its Empress. _

The shimmering walls regain familiarity as he looks around — he spots patches of floor indistinguishable from still water, mirrors that look like doorways, bastions far taller than they seem when viewed from afar. The palace of illusions conceived by one of Khandav-prastha’s sole survivors, the asura Maya.

It was a long time ago, that he grew used to white walls and an endless snowstorm. The rich vibrancy of his old home is dizzying as consequence, senses almost overloading with the sudden flood of colours.

But it is home, admittedly far more to him than Chaldea will ever be.

“Why am I here ?”

_ Need another Bhagavad Gita ? _ The voice is still jovial, but serious undertones now accompany it.  _ You’ll find out soon. _

“Govind, I—surely you must know. Where is my Master ?”

_ I am a charioteer, a cowherd, and a flute player, Partha. Not a fortuneteller, by any means. _

As he absentmindedly walks, body instinctively avoiding the tricks of the mind installed into the castle, more of it reveals itself beyond the fog of his mind — its sprawling rooms, its ornate paintings, its blooming gardens. It would be lovelier for the presence of the people he’s grown to love and care for — Vrindavan’s protector, Dharmaraj, Vrikodara, Nakul-Sahdev, Draupadi.

Alas, he has but the voice of one to accompany him.

He questions and Krishna responds, talking to him of everything under the sun: the reasons for being brought to this new place, the reasons for Eklavya’s appearance, the separation. At the last one he hears Krishna’s voice increase in urgency.

_ A demon. I’m positive of it — nothing minor, at that. If I had to guess...Kali. Dvapara is a possibility, but Shakuni does not have feud with you personally. _

“Duryodhana’s quarrel was with my elder brothers.” His feet stop in front of a closed pair of golden doors ; Gandiva is adjusted on his back.

_ Then you are forgetting the one that did have a grudge with you. To him, you were a mirror in terms of power — stronger than him, more skilled than him. He thought of you as what he might have been, had he not been born a suta, then thought of you as the one he had to overcome if he was ever to prove himself as most skilled archer. _

There are no need for more hints. The sacred bow falls into his hands, and his own mind steels for the fight ahead.

_ He was born just and upright, but dharma decayed into adharma for the sake of power. For the sake of respect he believed he had a right to. Loyalty to a king is always a good trait, but loyalty bound his hands to adharma. _

The message is clear.

_ Do not doubt yourself. This is your duty. It was your duty kalpas ago. It is your duty now. _

The doors swing open. Clear ebony eyes stare directly into mismatched ones. On a battlefield where dharma comes to die, they are perhaps the sole ones remaining adherent to it.

But dharma itself takes precedent over loyalty to a friend mistaken for dharma.

“Arjuna.”   
  
“Radheya.”

Vijaya rests comfortably in his fingers, and there is no chariot beneath him. They will fight as mere archers today — not car-warriors, not as Karna and Arjuna.

This battle is just self-gratification, he thinks. They are two long-dead men fighting a single battle from a single war over and over again, because they chose opposite sides and paid their own prices.

_ No. _ A voice resonates in the depths of his soul. He attaches a face to it — skin darker than sapphire, eyes like whirling vortexes, a voice as slick as clarified butter. 

_ You remain yourself. And he remains himself. This is not just a form of self-pleasure. _

_ Your karma is yours to bear, and so is his. _

The second set of doors open.

He could see that same face a thousand times and never hate it any less. He could never forget the insult hurled upon a woman with temperament like a flashing thunderbolt. He could never forget the brutal murder of a nephew (to him, a son), struck down in cold blood as he not only watched on, but aided.

As long as they live this second life, Arjuna doubts he will ever be able to forgive that man. The words on that man’s tongue drip with venom, arrogance and sarcasm, his own fingers comfortable on his bow.

“Son of Indra.”

“Son of Surya.”

The lance he used against Ghatotkacha is gone from his hands. His hair falls crimson to his shoulders, and the pale white of his flesh is marred from blackened areas that Indra’s blessing did not cover. Adharma catches up to even the most flawless of men in the end, stains them with their own choices. Dharma strips away the blessings they used to propagate acts against it, and justice, nay, finality, comes in the form of Yama’s  _ Pasha _ . 

The arrow Karna nocks gives off a strange odour. Its consecration with incense and constant immersion in pleasant-smelling sandalwood is obvious from even as far away as he is. But what should have been a delight to the nose causes his own to wrinkle instead — the arrow’s stench is akin to a sickly-smelling corpse flower, one that sucks in men to die ignoble deaths.

_ The smell of adharma, _ Krishna whispers inside his mind, and Arjuna understands — or rather  _ knows _ — instinctively that there is an unholy taint that sloughs off of the golden warrior in front of him. Like a sunspot on a blazing sun, it is one of those things that remains with him in this life.

“There is nothing more to say, is there ?” Karna asks, a question with an answer already hanging in the air between them. Neither is willing to say it, but both know it deep in their hearts.

_ As long as we live, we are irreconcilable. _

Wordlessly, he raises the Gandiva, mirroring the Vijaya’s readying, and wonders why he seems to only know how to kill those he should have loved.

अर्जुन

The mace trails rusted iron chains in the wake of its swing, screaming through the air like a banshee. Kiritin swipes his hand forwards, creates a shining stream like the Ganges in the air. 

Their combat is enthralling to an outside observer, but Ritsuka knows it would be immediately fatal to any intruder. The most she can hope for is to keep herself alive ; when that is not much of an issue, to provide her Servant support. Both are powerful — it’s obvious in the astonishing ease with which Kiritin blasts apart rock or Kali craters the ground.

_! Not now ! _

The voices return with a vengeance, words imprinting on her mind as if she was reading them. It is something that teeters on the edge of knowledge meant for man, like a vessel of unearthly information poured down from somewhere that exists outside of the dimensions she knows. Abigail Williams, B.B., Hokusai...all of them had had Outer Gods mingled with their beings — creatures perfectly able to convert the Fujimaru into a gibbering, mindless subhuman, but this is something much, much more different.

But for some reason, they’re much more clear than before, and though the words she sees in her mind’s eye are Sanskrit characters, they translate to English as she hears them being spoken.

_ By slaying preceptors, even if they are avaricious of wealth, I shall only enjoy pleasures that are bloodstained ! _

_ I would not have this war for ownership of the three worlds, let alone a single earthly kingdom. _

_ Such a cowardly spirit will not lead you to heaven, but disgrace. This weakness is beneath you. Cast it aside and arise ! _

_ And enjoy a kingdom covered in my own grandsire’s blood ? _

_ You grieve for those you should not. Wise men grieve not for the living or the dead ; the body dies, but the soul does not. As a man exchanges old clothes for new, so does the soul exchange worn-out bodies for new ones, as if they were its raiment. _

_ It neither kills nor is killed, neither is born or destroyed, has existed and shall always exist. _

There is something familiar about those words, and the voices that speak them. The noises of combat fade into a distant buzz around her as she works to try and remember.

_ The song of god is timeless, _ an old, old voice says to her from a time long lost, a purer time before the Kali Yuga, a time where the gods were infinitely closer to earth than they were now.

It clicks with those simple words.

(had Arjuna been here, he’d make a commend about how Vasudev was always skilled at making you remember things with an offhand comment.)

The Bhagavad Gita is one of Hinduism’s most foremost texts, detailing Arjuna’s conflict with himself over the morality of fighting a war against those he loves — narrated, or rather spoken to him, by the eponymous god, Krishna.

There can be absolutely no questioning it now — the dream they walk within is Arjuna’s.

_ But then why is a figure like Kali in it ? _ the voice pries, and before she can so much as attempt to answer, reality snaps her back to it by way of a stunningly loud explosion and a sharp, almost pained cry of “ **_Master !_ ** ”

अर्जुन

Karna takes the first shot.

The first arrow sears with the fires of Agni as it hums towards him, and he sees that his rival intends to use the devastras from the get-go. 

That’s one less reason to hold back, and so a cooling varunaastra is invoked from the Pandava. The divine missile seeks Agnidev’s flames, devouring them as hungrily as Agni himself consumes clarified butter, and soaks the ground beneath them as the sputtering of the agneyastra dies out. Their archery now is nothing like how Eklavya and himself fought — that was a battle of Servants, a battle fought with prana-formed arrows. This is a battle that was fought once on Kurukshetra and now again, in the darkest recesses of the silver archer’s mind.

No charioteer exists, and therefore no excuse for a loss or win — just transcendent skill at play as shafts whisper through the air and etch their marks in distinct cavities on the walls. They fight to the limits of their existence, the limits of their talent, bodies unhindered by Servant vessels.

There is no ‘Servant, Archer’ or ‘Servant, Lancer’ in here, not anymore — there is only Vijaya and Vasusena, Dhananjaya and Danveer. Their shafts open shallow cuts on each others bodies, and ever so often one twists sideways to duck more darts. Their armour has cracked from the force of their arrows.

The vayvayastra is summoned to whip up hurricane-level gales, baffling Arjuna’s stream of arrows; it’s responded to by the aindraastra, shooting blue electric darts through Vayu’s wild breezes.

There is no one else in the room save himself and his half-brother, but Arjuna feels something settle upon his shoulders — a sense of comfort that feels like a river of light embracing him. It is warm and soft, and the tickle of a small puff of air brushes the back of his neck.

_ Vasudev, you’re here with me, still ? _

He feels a smile press against his neck, and can almost imagine the godhead’s smirk and mutter of  _ Obviously _ .

Karna’s hands abruptly incline his bow into an angle parallel to the ground, arrow pointing perpendicular to the ceiling. As if it was a simple movie playing out in front of him, Arjuna knows where that incantation will lead. Parashurama had forced Karna out of his ashram, but not without parting gifts — the bhargavastra being one of them.

The blazing round leaps into the air and adorns empty space, thousands of weapons pouring from it like a flood from some invisible gate. Someone else’s hands move Arjuna’s own; an arrow is withdrawn from a quiver and the brahmastra called into it. He sees them both eat at each other, nullifying and being nullified.

It is exactly like the battle he remembers — Kurukshetra’s bloodred plains and a sunset that arrived far, far too late. Karna was not talkative then, and he speaks little now; unlike Eklavya, whose vitriol is things he has longed to tell Arjuna since the ashram, Karna embraces the detachment of a kshatriya, dutifully aims to kill even his own brother. Besides, there is no time for frivolous talk when both battle to the ends of their own power, concentrating so intensely on their battle that their bows seem to become one with the men themselves.

Vijaya and Gandiva. What makes the archer, however, is not the bow, but the person who wields it.

...So, it comes to no surprise as to how the battle ends.

अर्जुन

“ **_Master_ ** !”

She turns too late, but not late enough to miss the sight of a blue-clad figure rushing to intercept a particularly fierce mace blow that crackles with red. The force of it, taken with no defense but his own body in panic, is heavy enough to crack bone — Kiritin can withstand it, but in moments the mace-wielder’s deceptively large build is upon him like a leopard, pinning him down.

A grimace engraves itself upon dark features, and he curses himself for not having planned that the demon would try to take his Master out. Ritsuka stares at him with wide eyes, panic seeming to set in.

_ It was not your fault, _ he tries to convey with his eyes, as he struggles to rise from where Kali-Duryodhana crushes him with pure strength in a wrestler’s manner. Gada fighters are taught to be hammered at and to hammer others, and Duryodhana’s moderately slender build belies a terrifying strength in his muscles.

No deva would give a demon the benefit of seeing them close their eyes as they were killed. Kiritin’s pupils meet Kali’s defiantly, and Arjuna’s pierce into Duryodhana’s. The demon sneers, raises his mace —

— and nothing.

Mana crackles around the coiled muscles, locking them in place. Kali-Duryodhana goes rigid in his current pose, long enough for Kiritin to realise what it was, and slip out from beneath him with a quick roll. Kali’s consciousness attempts to force his eyes to follow, but they only succeed in budging a millmetre to the left.

Ritsuka’s magic circuits have sent magic crackling into the air, her eyes ablaze with ruby red, and the remnants of  _ Gandr _ sparking off her fingertips. When she is surrounded by figures like King Arthur, Rama, Heracles and Gilgamesh, it is all too easy to forget that this is a once-lowly magus who singlehandedly saved the world from death several times over — and who has the tactical sense and her own strength to back it up. Kiritin feels her mana surge through him, empowering him with a surge of warmth in his blood that is like the heat of exerted muscles.

Mahāpralaya comes to him, the metallic constructs behind him clamping together into a sword’s hilt. The devastras meld together, dissolving in a vortex of cobalt, becoming a stanchion of pure azure. He can see  _ Gandr’s _ effects fade, see the raised sinews outlined by the cavern’s torchlight begin to flex once more. There will be only one chance for  _ Kalki’s _ final strike.

अर्जुन

_ Waste no more time, Arjuna. _

अर्जुन

Somewhere, a sword descends vertically down a bronzed warrior’s back, splitting him into two. His mace clangs to the ground and then begins to dissolve into gold dust like its master, a curse upon the defeated one’s lips. A wisp of black smoke begins to emerge.

Somewhere else, an arrow cuts into golden flesh, the amrita-armour pared away from it. It plunges into and out of the trachea, hooks and carves the head away like a gutted fish. The magnificent trunk falls onto its knees, and then, the warrior that had accomplished that feat sinks to his own, relief flooding through him like a tidal wave.

“Are you okay ?”

Ritsuka’s breaths come sharp and fast, and her pupils dilate with the adrenaline pumped through her body. Yet the majority of her concern is resolved for the boy who has sustained nasty purple bruises in the prior conflict.

“I am fine. Gods heal easily. My time here is not up yet.” Kiritin waves her concern away.

Something twinkles in the edge of his vision, something both bright and foggy, and he squints through the haze of exhaustion.

“Master, wait. Don’t move.”   
  


_ You ! _

“Hu—”

_ YOU TOOK HIS REVENGE FROM HIM ! _

Before she can reply, an astra is fired directly at the side of her head.

अर्जुन

_ It was always going to bring you back here, you thought. When that exulted warrior stood upon his chariot and called you to arms, you’d realised that this was the day one of you died. _

_ You have suffered through your fair share in life, and so has he, but your paths had forked a long, long time ago; you and he were incapable of ever finding peace now. Your children were proof enough of that. _

_ Thus, with nothing left to say and only scorching arrows to exchange, you reached for your quiver, and you put arrow to bow. You told your charioteer to ride at him, to avenge your boy and to avenge everyone else. _

_ And so it is, that  _ **_Vijaya_ ** _ sings its first note in a melody of battle, and so it is, that you as Vrishasena and Surya to watch over you, and so it is, that you think to your mother Kunti —  _ **_after today, you may finally have only five sons._ **

अर्जुन

_ I had loved him as if he was my own family. I had always paid him the respect due an elder. Yet when the time came, his allegiance drove him to side with Hastinapura. He was the last Kuru left, the last true one of the dynasty begat from the fisherwoman. I agonised over fighting him...fighting the man who carried me in his lap when I was an orphaned child from the forests. _

_ But...to think I see you again here, Pitamah...karma isn’t kind, is it ? _

Before the alabaster bow can be raised, though, a sizzling arrow has already reached the chest of the silver archer that was once loved by the old man.

No time comes for him to even croak out Bhishma’s name before he falls to the floor.

अर्जुन

Her ear doesn’t come off.

What is sliced instead, with unerring aim and precision, is a golden earring — one Kiritin remembers from the moment with the varunastra. From the remnants on the ground, a wisp of black smoke fizzles out.

Kiritin grinds it into the dirt with grim finality, before turning to address his actions.

“Kali dwells in gold. There is a legend of the king Pariksit — the descendant of ‘myself’ — meeting the demon Kali and being asked to give him five places he could reside. Gambling dens, taverns, places of prostitution, places where greed dwelt...and gold. Kali entered the king’s golden crown and corrupted his thoughts.”

  
Ritsuka touches the earlobe where the golden earrings once sat, and looks back at Kiritin.

“...Did he…?”

“...Most likely.” Kiritin’s eyes rove the passageway. “Down there.” A staircase stretches on into the darkness, and from it, the Fujimaru can just barely hear the sound of a bowsting twanging like some great vina.

“Let’s be quick.”

अर्जुन

He comes to in a place like Vrindavan, with grass growing lush under his feet, lotuses blooming on a lake and the sun setting in some far off distance, but he does not see the man with lotus-eyes and sapphire-dark skin he’s searched for throughout this labyrinth. What he sees are the short, azure horns of a boy who looks so much like him, who looks so much like  _ Partha _ , son of Pritha, and not the hero with a thousand obligations and a thousand sorrows left, that it is nearly painful to still gaze upon him.

“Kiritin…?”

The boy only smiles at him, reaching out.

“Why are you here ?”

_ This is where Vasudeva and I had our talks...you shouldn’t be able to come here. _

“The situation now is...complicated.” Kiritin speaks with unfocused eyes. “It seems the ‘Arjuna’ part of myself has been sent to this place, while the godly side of myself...is otherwise occupied.”   
  
“Is it Pitamah ?”

“The avatar of the Vasu Dyaus...yes, he certainly is a mighty foe. But how he can be defeated is not the reason why you were called here.”

Kiritin looks off into the distance, but Arjuna cannot shake the feeling of his Alter self’s attention still being focused on him. It is familiar, hauntingly so.

“The reason for the  _ maya _ that separated us and you in this dream was Duryodhana — or Kali, rather. I’ve taken care of that vile demon.”

Kiritin, like this, looks older and younger than him at the same time: old in his knowledge of things that have been and will be ; young in the black and white ways he views the world. He is an Arjuna from a time in which he had thought the world was full of blackguards or saints only, and believed that no one from his family could do anything wrong. A time in which dharma was a straight and narrow path of black and white, and not a tangled mess of roads dyed dirty grey.

“As for you — why do you hesitate ?”

Arjuna starts, and Kiritin pushes on.

“Your darkness was revealed, and accepted. You’ve lifted the ban on your Noble Phantasm, on Agni Gandiva. Why do you resist showing her the true Arjuna ? Do you have so much to fear from what you’ve done ?”

_ In my heart, resides darkness, jealousy and envy. _

_ For that reason, I can never —  _

“I stood by as trickery occurred, and couldn’t stop my own sons from dying.”

“So did I.”

Kiritin has lived through Kurukshetra as well, seen the idiocy of the battle, seen the selfishness of men, and in his endeavours to correct it, most of his humanity had been the price. 

“Our Master would accept anyone for who they are. And you are hardly more sinful than Duryodhana.”

“That does not excuse that I killed my grandfather with these hands.”

“He desired to die.”

“No.” Arjuna shakes his head. “He died because of trickery and illusion.”

The staining of a Heroic Spirit is possible by the constant rumours surrounding their legends — so it is that after death, the dead are either defiled or deified. In this place where deepest fears take root and grow at breakneck speeds, Arjuna’s own terror has pervaded the place.

“War is not about who is right.” Kiritin parrots Krishna from an age long ago — he is not Krishna, after all, but simply another Arjuna that lost his way and strives now to keep his counterpart from treading the same path as himself. The devas’ power was immense, infinite — and infinitely inhumane, forcing him into a state where the sole option was to advance with the weight of regrets like the weight of the world on his shoulders.

“...It is about who is left.” Arjuna finishes, nodding as he looks out onto the peaceful shores of Vrindavan.

“And nothing was left of either of us. Not even our honour.”

“Pariksit remained.”

“Without a father.” Arjuna turns to Kiritin. “If I had been stronger, smarter, if I had thought Ashwatthama might try for revenge, if I —”

“Those are the questions neither of us can answer.” Kiritin cuts him off.

“If I had your power during Kurukshetra, could I have ended it before everyone else had to die for a victory that wasn’t even a true victory ?”

“You do not want the strength of the devas, Arjuna.”

“Kiritin.” Despondency unveils itself in his gaze. “I couldn’t even save the child Uttaraa bore.”

“That may be so.” Kiritin rocks back on his heels, suspended in the air. A sparrow comes down to rest on his finger, and he runs a gentle hand over the bird’s glossy feathers. It chirps at him in easy contentment, and he smiles.

“You may have no choice but to continue with that regret until the end of your days.”  _ And he has, up until snowstorms drenched them as they reached the summit of the Himalayas and he finally fell, wondering why Yudhisthira had thought he was proud of the selfsame skills that had known only how to kill other people. _

“But in the end...you’ll remain a hero who rises.”

“Are you not one yourself ?”

  
Kiritin only shakes his head. It is a childish gesture done with the world-weariness of an old man. That Alter of his, Arjuna finds, straddles a line between extremes — the boyish features that hide a man millennia old, the human who became a god.

“Gods cannot be heroes. We are far too removed from where human heroes stand. So the only hero here to speak of is you — a hero who rises.”

The lotuses on the pond glow orange in the setting sun. He remembers Drona telling him that only lotuses grow where the dirt and sludge are thickest, and wonders if any lotus flowers are to be found in the bloody fields of Kurukshetra, if any can be found in the silent burdens Kiritin bears, if any grow in the deep darkness of his own heart.

“I am not fit to serve a Master like her.”

“She is the one who saved you.” Kiritin levels his gaze with his Archer self. “Our Master cares for you. She would not think you unworthy to serve her.”   
  
“Our Master is too nice for her own good,” is what Arjuna can only feebly offer as a defence.

“You yourself know that not to be the case, Arjuna.” Kiritin tilts his head.

“Why did you bring me here ?” The Archer asks once more.

Kiritin smiles lazily. It’s a smile that is free and full of hope, full of melancholy.

“To remind you of something. You are a kshatriya. You fought a bloody and almost pointless war. Your deeds in that war will not leave you...but you are not defined solely by the past, are you ?”

Sadness creeps into those words, despite the Alter’s attempts to keep it out.   
  


“Each of the people who fought there did things that cannot be erased so easily. Yet Ashwatthama and his father live the closest thing to a family life. Yet Karna has found some form of peace. Why must you torment yourself over it ?”

“Was I wrong ?”

There is a fourth word. It begins with a ‘K’ sound. It is too quiet for Alter to know if he asked that question to ‘Kiritin’ or ‘Krishna’.

But in Krishna’s absence, he replies as well as he can.

“Your war was for your disgraced wife’s honour and for a throne snatched from you. You were not wrong.”

The lake shines like a river of pure light, like moksha given a physical form.

“Stand up, Arjuna.” Kiritin kicks a leg out as he sits and watches the sun set.

“A hero such as yourself cannot falter now, plagued by the evils of despair. Are you not Vasudev’s greatest devotee ? Has the song of God left your ears ?”

Voices call him back to the room where his grandfather had fired the first arrow at him. Answering their call or ignoring it would be equally easy.

“Let your regrets move you forward.” Kiritin fiddles with his collar, adjusting it almost sheepishly.

“But do not let them make you choose to become a god. Gods are not heroes. Do not let regret bind you to this world, hide from those you love in shame.”

_ Devaloka is immortal and eternally youthful — and eternally stagnate. It is mortals that have the briefest lives, but the most brilliant ones. _

“You were wrong.”

“Hm ?” Kiritin looks up in mild surprise.   
  
“A god can become a hero too.” Arjuna isn’t sure where he has the memory from, but he sees it clear nonetheless — realising his Master had been in danger, that so-called god who was above mortal influences would bodily throw himself into an attack’s way.

“Would our Master not agree, Kiritin ?”

The boy laughs, like a tinkling bell-chime. The dialogue between them is far too stilted and idealistic...at the same time, he knows he has just seen a part of the Archer only Krishna had known prior to this encounter.

It isn’t the most profound or philosophical of discussions, but it is what comes of a man loved by the gods and a man who became the final god. It is what comes of two very different versions of a great hero. And to Kiritin, it is enough — with hope, it will be the same for Arjuna.

“A hero ? No, that is just how a god would act…”

अर्जुन

“Vasu, so we meet again.”

She’s not sure what’s just happened the past few moments.

The chamber they entered was devoid of all save Arjuna’s limp body upon the ground — though a quick check had confirmed he was still alive — and the elder who had killed him.

Unlike Eklavya, this one is clearly past his youth, a white beard accompanying long white hair. But the massive bow in his hands and the taut veins on his arms say as much to his strength as anything else.

Kiritin had rushed towards the Archer’s motionless frame, and when he turned to face the one who struck him down, there was a fire in eyes that strangely reminded her of a lotus, and a disc spinning upon his finger.

“Nara-yana !” The old man’s booming chuckle echoes around the room. “Have you come to deliver death to me at last ?”

“If need be.” A new voice comes from Kiritin, something that is carefree enough to contrast glaringly with the lethal chakra. “After all, if I leave Partha here, he’ll die. I do not long to stand by his funeral pyre in this life.”

The old man laughs again, throwing down his bow and spreading his arms wide. “Then kill me, O Keshava ! Grant Devavrata freedom from this life on a world of sorrow !”

Kiritin — or someone else now — only stalks towards the unresisting man, the chakra gleaming, and Ritsuka watches with breath bated.

_ “Wait !” _

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> by personal standards, not too good a chapter, but my apologies: i've been in a writing funk for a while. i'll try and make it up with the next one !


	7. how to rule over a kingdom of widows

_ “I am Lancer. Dharmaputra, Yudhisthira. Are you my Master ?” _

_ “Yes. Let’s fight together, Yudhi-san !”  _

Maybe you think it will hurt less as time goes on. Maybe you think eventually you will find it: the victory Vyasa and Krishna both declare for you. Maybe you think you have already found it, and that the shock is just settling in: who would have thought that you, ready to accept five villages, would now rule the sea-rimmed earth herself ?

_ Foolish delusions you tell yourself to make you feel better, about the throne that was paid for with its weight in familial blood _ .

You do not ever find that victory. Not now, not in thirty-six years (but the Yadavas find death then), not even at the end of a long, long life weighed down by duty and shackled by  _ dharma _ .

  
  


There is one benefit to ruling a kingdom soaked in grief: there are no more conflicts or court disputes.

What there is is silence. Silence and a stewing sense of disgust.

Make no mistake — you know Duryodhana’s former citizens hate you. You know the women of Indraprastha, left only with babes and children suckling at their bosoms, left without a single able-bodied man in the days after its conclusion, look at you with the hate reserved for an invader who’s occupied their country abruptly.

You want to ask if it was all well and good, then, when he poisoned your brother, tried to burn you and your family to ashes, and rigged a dice game to specifically cheat you out of a country the sons of Pandu had built from barren wasteland.

But you know better than to do that.

  
  
  
  


You wish you could envy your brothers, for not having to participate in this, but it is against dharma.

You settle instead for burying yourself in paperwork and accounts, like how Arjuna immerses himself in archery. His fingers grow callused, and on the rare occasions where you walk through the palace, sometimes you see Draupadi (or Subhadra, if her year has not come) attending to the blisters or splinters present on his skin.

You think that she’s never shown you this amount of kindness before, push it aside when doubts creep up (were you not strong enough in Kurukshetra to defend her honour ?), and then dash off. You tell yourself it is to not invade their privacy, but there is something more that you don’t want to confront.

It seems that the sons born of kings — one of Indra the king of devas and the other of Yama the king of dharma — are forever destined to wear second faces, to stick steadfast to a code naraku-bent on destroying them. To hold to unbroken promises, until those promises break them.

You could laugh.

  
  


You heard your brother laugh, once.

Just once.

It was his year with Draupadi and he was in the gardens, practising archery — not with Gandiva, but with a common man’s bow, speaking of how he couldn’t simply rely on what Agni had given him. You’ll learn later that even that will have been for naught — but what the gods decide is set in stone. A fate even their scion are powerless to rebel against.

They had spoken, likely, of something trivial and meaningless and probably a reminiscence of days long past, and suddenly, Arjuna is laughing, and it is clear and bright and fills the palace halls with boundless joy, like sparkling, pure water poured into every crevice of Indraprastha, or lightning buzzing through the air and electrifying you down to the very hairs on your arms. You had turned the other way, for fear of eavesdropping further, yet you’d felt lighter, for that moment.

But the weight of winning always settles back onto a king’s shoulders. The wheel of dharma turns and turns and grinds boys into blood and bone, grinds palaces into ashes, and grinds childish ideals into empty smoke.

You take the smallest of comforts in one thing, at least:  _ it was better than if Duryodhana had won. _

  
  


And so you climb into an emperor’s bed that is far, far too big for your cold body ; you listen to the jackals outside howling and think about how they sound like the screams of a former friend turned enemy ; you look up at the golden ceilings and look around at the silken sheets, so forlorn and empty of substance in the dim light of the moon, and you wait to feel anything, anything but nothing at all.

“The wheel of dharma will turn ceaselessly,” you think you can hear Vyasa murmur, a whisper of wisdom carried to you on the wind. “No king rules forever, and no victory is won without blood.”

_ “What do you wish for, Lancer ?” _

_ “...I want to know what dharma is, Master.” _

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> my first time writing a fic !! i was super shy about this, but my love for the new indian servants won out in the end, lmao. do let me know what improvements can be made.


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